What my 3 year old says when the gears in his head are spinning. So this is a place for me to "spin my gears" (post my thoughts)... OK, fast forward 3 years because my 3 year old is now six years old. I will keep the title the same, though, in honor of his having been three years old once!

Monday, March 21, 2011

There are a lot of recipes that I used to make but have not been able to because two out of four of us are gluten free. One of our favorites was this vegan/lenten (we are vegan at certain times of the year due to fasting in our church) apple cake recipe given to us years ago by our koumbara (we are godparents to their daughter). Anyway, I miss this cake. And while it is not sugar free (I am one of those crazy people who does not eat sugar or artificail sweeteners- DH is not sugar free)- it is nice to, on occasion, have a decent lenten/vegan dessert that you can bring to a potluck or serve to guests.

About six months ago, I discovered Jules Gluten Free flour mix and have had wonderful results making GF bread in my bread machine and following Jules' recipes for making cookies, pizza, etc. And nothing tastes like it is GF- you know what I mean- slightly gritty, maybe with a "bean" aftertaste. I have 5 or 6 of her ecookbooks and use them often. So I made a GF Irish Soda bread the other night for St. Patrick's day and it was amazing. I decided, ok. let's put this flour to the test and try a recipe that we loved but haven't been able to eat in a few years.

It turned out great! I took it to our mom's potluck last night. There is one piece left and I am going to save it for DH while I take the boys to the monastery for the night.
Here is the recipe (I 1/2'd the recipe because if it didn't turn out, I did not want to "waste" that much flour as it is kind of spendy- but in one of Jules' cookbooks she has the ratio for her flour mix and sometimes I buy the flour and sometimes I mix it myself).
Dulci's Famous Vegan (and now Gluten Free) Apple Cake

When apple mixture is ready, stir it into the flour mixture until it's well combined - it will be gooey!
Bake at 350 for 40-50min in a greased & floured 9x13 cake pan. The top will be a dark golden brown & slightly crispy.

NOTE: for the oil, I used coconut oil. You can use any combination of oil to make this- I probably wouldn't use all olive oil, though. But a combination of coconut oil and olive oil would work nicely.